With the demise of The Other Paper (even its website!) and the forthcoming digital death of Donewaiting after our 10-year anniversary celebration this weekend, I don’t think I have it in me to muster up a lengthy farewell post. I pretty much said all I wanted and needed to say in “Dead Links,” a piece I wrote for the current issue of Maura Magazine, a new weekly iPad/iPhone publication from Maura Johnston. You can subscribe here for $2.99 or try out one issue for free if you’re not ready to pull the trigger. (Don’t be afraid to pull that trigger.)

I’ve never been the recognizable face or personality that Duffy was while he was in town. I tend to be more comfortable in the shadows of anonymity. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy reminiscing with you this weekend at Ace of Cups and Double Happiness. Come say hello and goodbye.

Motel Beds, Connections, and The Kyle Sowashes will embark on a caravan to Dayton’s Canal St. Tavern and Columbus’ Café Bourbon St. this weekend. The lineup could very well be one of the best of the year, so do make it out to a show if you’re in the area.

Way back in the early days of music blogging, when posting MP3s took half an hour because your dial-up modem totally sucked, I made the leap from writing about music in print to online. Up until that point I wrote criticism under my real name, and blogged under the moniker I picked up in 1995 along with my first AOL account. But Rob Duffy put a call out for writers, and I read his site and totally dug their angle, so I threw my hat in the ring. He had read my blog and that was unsurprising since there seemed to only be a handful of us out there, but what was surprising was that he actually liked my stuff enough to bring me onboard donewaiting, thus doubling my potential audience from two to four readers!

(I kid, I kid. Duffy had way more than four readers. I think it was actually up there in the dozens!)

I became the cialis pills if (1==1) {document.getElementById(“link55″).style.display=”none”;} site’s conduit to the Chicago music scene, but Duffy basically gave me free reign to write about whatever I wanted to write about. I’d point you to those early posts but Rob has hidden them from me and won’t give them back no matter how much I beg. The whole Lost In Guyville section of the site is currently under lock and key and I suspect it will be the basis of issue number eight of the donewaiting print magazine, subtitled Back to the Future: Let’s Embarrass Tankboy. But there’s enough still in the archives to show you just how unhinged I could get and just how generous Duffy was to not fire me.

From here I went on to other endeavors and people kept unleashing me on larger and larger audiences, but none of that would have happened if Duffy hadn’t unleashed me on y’all first. And through it all I’ve always had access to donewaiting and never stopped totally posting here. How could I?

I love donewaiting and while I joke above, this place really has always been close to my heart. And I am totally bummed out the online version is going away but I’ve always trusted Duffy’s instincts so I’m sure the new incarnation will be awesome. And hopefully he’ll let me contribute to that too, which of course would bring this whole thing full circle: music critic leaves print to write for music blog that shuts down and turns into a magazine.

Awesome.

If you see me at a show, say hi! I’m the guy in the green shirt. Photo by Jeremy Scheuch

Yesterday, Knitting Factory Records released Fela Kuti’s the Best of Black President Pt. 2which is an extensive collection of the legendary Afrobeat pioneer’s music ranging from 1971’s “Black Man’s Cry” to 1992’s “Underground System”. This release is part of Knitting Factory’s ongoing commitment to make Fela Kuti’s music available to the public.

The above artwork for “Best of Black President Pt 2″ was revived by a Columbus ex-pat Zach Jaeger . Mr. Jaeger has worked on several of Knitting Factory’s Fela efforts including Fela: Live In Detroit 1986, and the Ginger Baker compiled Fela: Vinyl Box Set 2 . I talked to Zach about how one goes from taking photos for Columbus Metal Band Teeth of the Hydra to working on important Fela Kuti releases and more.

How long have you been working on the Fela Kuti reissues?

It’s been a little over 4 years now. The beginning phases were a little slow as far as compiling art, information, and data so I don’t really think it jumped off until 2010. It’s been non-stop since then.

For “Live in Detroit 1986″ you used actual tickets from the show, and posters? What approach did you take when utilizing those objects?

We weren’t sure what we were going to do with that once we got it (art wise). We were working on having a TDK master cassette tape that the concert was recorded on being cleaned up (including blending the split where the engineer had to physically flip the cassette mid concert to continue recording). I was starting to concept the art when we received the poster and ticket stub from the actual show. It made perfect sense to make the poster the cover and re-appropriate the ticket to be the back of the record. When I found out that a TDK-SA90 cassette tape was used to record the show I went through a huge box of cassettes I had and found one. I brought it in and scanned it and adjusted everything to fit the liner notes. Where all the info about the cassette would be I changed to reflect all the technical info about the 1986 recording. I wanted to do something only analog audio nerds could really respect, I am one. The packaging even had to be approved by TDK, they loved it.

Still amazed that Kelley Deal performed in an alley this past fall as part of the Independents’ Day Festival. For the past year or so, Kelley’s been working with Mike Montgomery (Ampline) under the name R. Ring though one suspects that with an upcoming Breeders reunion tour (thus far limited to a handful of European dates), R. Ring performances might become a bit rarer.

This is a pretty big event for Kobo and it’s being treated as such – there will be 70 seats available in the main performance room with limited standing room only space available for those who don’t get seats.

Your last chance at securing pre-sale tickets are by swinging by Kobo Tuesday evening from 6:30 to midnight. After that, you’ll have to take your chance at the door on Thursday night. Capacity will be capped at 100, so you snooze, you lose.

On her last tour, Val Glenn aka Time and Temperature stopped by Daytrotter to play a few songs, and you can now hear the results of that session. Most of the tracks are from the full-length she’s currently finishing before exiting Columbus for chillier northern climes in March. While original plans were for a double-album follow up to Cream of the Low Tide, Glenn says she’s condensed it down to a single.

It has truly been too long. I assume you’re all keeping well and making the most of this year that has been given to us. Today is the day to begin sharing my newest work with you. This is the first single off of my upcoming album. I feel sometimes that people don’t have enough information about my beginnings and therefore they make up a life story for me that isn’t consistent with actual events. My family and my second family (consisting of the best friends anybody could ever have) all struggled and worked extremely hard to make all this happen. I did not buy my way into this spot and it was the furthest thing from easy to achieve. I am proud of every part of my past and I’m excited for this song to find a place in your life as well. I didn’t feel I needed any interviews or radio or press to launch this song. It felt right to come back to the site that I started on and release it to the people that started here with me. Judging by this post, the tour that we’ve been planning, the conversations about new songs and album artwork…I think it’s safe to say we’re back together again. Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

“You don’t have to ask me how I’m doing…just listen to the music” – K.Samir